Attempts to relate – iv

THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA

THE TREE ON THE HILL

Zarathustra’s eye had perceived that a certain youth avoided him. And as he walked alone one evening over the hills surrounding the town called “The Motley Cow,” behold, there he found the youth sitting leaning against a tree, and gazing with wearied look into the valley. Zarathustra thereupon laid hold of the tree beside which the youth sat, and spoke thus:

“If I wished to shake this tree with my hands, I should not be able to do so. But the wind, which we see not, troubles and bends it as it tilts. We are sorest bent and troubled by invisible hands.”

Thereupon the youth arose disconcerted, and said: “I hear Zarathustra, and just now was I thinking of him!”

Zarathustra answered: “Why are you frightened on that account? – But it is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark and deep – into the evil.”

“Yes, into the evil!” cried the youth. “How is it possible that you have discovered my soul?”

Zarathustra smiled, and said: “Many a soul one will never discover, unless one first invent it.”

“Yes, into the evil!” cried the youth once more.

“you said the truth, Zarathustra. I trust myself no longer since I sought to rise into the height, and nobody trusts me any longer; how does that happen?

I change too quickly: my today refutes my yesterday. I often overleap the steps when I clamber; for so doing, none of the steps pardons me.

When aloft, I find myself always alone. No one speaks to me; the frost of solitude makes me tremble. What do I seek on the height?

My contempt and my longing increase together; the higher I clamber, the more do I despise him who clambers. What does he seek on the height?

How ashamed I am of my clambering and stumbling! How I mock at my violent panting! How I hate him who flies! How tired I am on the height!”

Here the youth was silent. And Zarathustra contemplated the tree beside which they stood, and spoke thus:

“This tree stands lonely here on the hills; it has grown up high above man and beast.
And if it wanted to speak, it would have none who could understand it: so high has it grown.
Now it waits and waits, – for what does it wait? It dwells too close to the seat of the clouds; it waits perhaps for the first lightning?”

When Zarathustra had said this, the youth called out with violent gestures:

“Yes, Zarathustra, you speak the truth. My destruction I longed for, when I desired to be on the height, and you are the lightning for which I waited! Behold. what have I been since you have appeared among us? It is my envy of you that has destroyed me!” – Thus spoke the youth, and wept bitterly. Zarathustra, however, put his arm about him, and led the youth away with him.

And when they had walked a while together, Zarathustra began to speak thus:

It rends my heart. Better than your words express it, your eyes tell me all your danger.

As yet you are not free; you still seek freedom. Too unslept has your seeking made you, and too wakeful.

On the open height would you be; for the stars thirsts your soul. But your bad impulses also thirst for freedom.

Your wild dogs want liberty; they bark for joy in their cellar when your spirit endeavor to open all prison doors.

Still are you a prisoner – it seems to me – who devises liberty for himself: ah! sharp becomes the soul of such prisoners, but also deceitful and wicked.

It is still necessary for the liberated spirit to purify himself. Much of the prison and the mould still remains in him: pure has his eye still to become.

Yes, I know your danger. But by my love and hope I appeal to you: cast not your love and hope away!

Noble you feel yourself still, and noble others also feel you still, though they bear you a grudge and cast evil looks. Know this, that to everybody a noble one stands in the way.

Also to the good, a noble one stands in the way: and even when they call him a good man, they want thereby to put him aside.

The new, would the noble man create, and a new virtue. The old, wants the good man, and that the old should be conserved.

But it is not the danger of the noble man to turn a good man, but lest he should become an arrogant boor , a mocker, or a destroyer.

Ah! I have known noble ones who lost their highest hope. And then they slandered all high hopes. Then lived they shamelessly in temporary pleasures, and beyond the day had hardly an aim.

“Spirit is also voluptuousness,” – said they. Then broke the wings of their spirit; and now it creeps about, and defiles where it gnaws. Once they thought of becoming heroes; but sensualists are they now. A trouble and a terror is the hero to them.

But by my love and hope I appeal to you: cast not away the hero in your soul! Maintain holy your highest hope!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.